said. "My daughter Rosa-she
is 11-is growing into a French
mademoiselle. I want her to
know her cousins, to keep up
her Spanish, not to forget her
homeland."
Viandar de la Vera tobacco
farmer Florencio Fernandez,
a spare, handsome man with
large hands, told me, "When I
worked in Switzerland, I earned
three times what I make here.
I saved enough to buy a small
shop for my wife, Francisca, to
pay for a new barn, a tractor.
But seven years is long enough
away from home."
Luis Javoloyes de Peralta, a
young physician from the pro
vincial health department, said:
"The village has a normal air to
it now in summer; the emigrant
families are back for their vaca
tions. The rest of the year the
population drops to 400, mostly
preschoolers and the very old.
"These are a tough people,
self-sufficient. They can handle
almost anything," he said.
"But their world is quickly
changing, becoming a more
lonely one. The strain shows.
Last year we had three suicides
in the valley."
NE MAN not
bothered by
solitude is
goatherd
Jesus Cas
tafio. All sum
mer he rules a mile-high
kingdom a half day's climb
above Viandar. We met on the
weekly descent he makes to sell
his fresh cheeses. He was a
stocky, rawboned man with a
quiet smile. He wore blue jeans,
a straw hat, and a leather pouch
over his shoulder, and he pro
pelled himself along with a stout
shepherd's crook.
At sunrise next morning Jesus
and I loaded the mules-bread,
coffee, sugar, feed supplement
for the goats, oranges for the
children, a packet of medicine,
mail-and followed a charging
brook through oak forests and
meadows. On a rocky knoll we
paused for a glance at the
red tile roofs of Viandar, now a
toy village 2,000 feet below. It
was noon when we unloaded
outside Jesus' stone and thatch
chozo, set among massive boul
ders below the Loma de la
Cumbre, a knife-edge ridge that
walls part of Extremadura's
northern frontier.
The low-roofed chozo mea
sured barely eight by ten feet,
just room enough for his family
of five to sleep. Jesus pointed
out his 130 goats grazing in the
steep brush. His red-cheeked
wife, Barbara, arrived from the
small nearby cave where they
make the cheeses, bearing a tin
pitcher full of goat's milk and a
surprised smile. I was their first
visitor all year.
"In June, when the grass is
rich, we can press about 30 two
pound wheels of cheese a day;
by August, we press about half
that," Jesus said. "We sell all
we can make."
Near dusk Jesus set to milk
ing while I helped the daughters
feed the family's four pigs and a
cackle of chickens. Bending
over the small fire, Sefiora Cas
tanio warmed potatoes and sau
sages for supper. We finished it
under a rising moon.
Jesus said, "My eldest, Maria
Victoria, is 17 now and cannot
wait to get back down to school.
This kind of life will not be hers.
Little Gloria, six, loves it here;
for her it is still a game.
"This is a hard life, I know
that. Look at Ramiro; he is only
12, andithasmadeamanof
him already. He plans to stay,"
Jesus said. "We have air to
breathe, and we are as close to
heaven as any cathedral. And
for us, crime, strikes, traffic
jams-these are just stories on
the radio. It is far better than
slaving away in some foreign
country."
134
T HE HARD LIFE on
horseback along
Extremadura's
cafiadas also offers
its simple rewards.
Our last night out
was Christmas Eve. Tired and
cold, we hobbled the horses and
unloaded under a spreading
encina tree. Quico and I eased
a day-old calf out of one of the
saddlebags and sent it wobbling
toward its anxious mother. By
dark we were warming our
selves, seated on bales of hay
around the glowing fire. The
neighing of horses and clinking
of cowbells slowly faded as our
beasts settled down for the
night, a living manger scene
under the chill December stars.
Quico hung an iron pot over
the fire and, by flashlight, stirred
onions, garlic, peppers, and lau
rel leaves into our bubbling mut
ton stew. El Pequefio roasted
chestnuts in the coals. Bread
crusts, dipped in sauce and tossed
into the dark for the patient dogs,
never touched the ground. No
holiday dinner I could recall ever
tasted better. And tomorrow the
journey would end, with the
vaqueros in their winter home
near Badajoz. A bath, a clean
shirt, a roof overhead.
"jFeliz Navidad!" Quico
saluted the feast-"Merry
Christmas!"-and passed the
wineskin around.
Before clouds canceled the
moonlight, I looked far out across
the plain-dim, tranquil, eter
nal-and was touched by the
irony of Extremadura. Its hardy
offspring-men of the soil like
Quico, Don Miguel, Jesus-once
sailed across a perilous ocean
and changed a continent, for
ever. All the while their home
land lay anchored in time.
Only now, five centuries after
Columbus and the conquistado
res, is Extremadura discovering
itself, finally girding for its most
important battle: retaining the
best of its past.
]
NationalGeographic, April 1991